Why you sometimes have to lose the plot

After the euphoria of early last week, I had a bit of a meltdown on Friday. I’d spent days managing multiple workmen, living out of a small suitcase, and being unable to easily find anything I wanted because my life was in cardboard boxes. That’s to say nothing of the fact that I just couldn’t find my way around this part of Buckinghamshire, was struggling to get basic things working, wasn’t eating properly and was fuelling myself on coffee and crap. It all finally got the better of me.

I guess in my enthusiasm for creating a new life, I’d overlooked the potential for there to be chaos in the process.

All the doubting voices in my head kicked in. Who was I to think I could uproot myself from London and be happy? What kind of brain seizure had I had that had made me think I could create a location independent living for myself? Especially when I was struggling to get a regular internet services company to provide me with basic broadband connection.

Steve was very good. He sat me down like I was a small child and just held me while I ranted on.

“You knew it was going to be a big change,” he said. Sometimes stating the obvious can be helpful.

“And you’ve got to remember what you’re doing this for.”

I have to say I felt like slapping him at that point, because I was so lost in the detail of everything that was happening that I’d completely lost sight of WHY I’d uprooted myself. I was a pioneer who’d left the motherland in search of a different future. It had all sounded rosy before I got onboard the ship, but now I was well out at sea with no horizon in sight and meantime a storm had developed. All I knew was how seasick I felt.

“My soul had made a decision to leave London some time ago and the rest of me was just catching up”

At that point what I wanted to do was to turn back; to tell my tenants that I’d made a dreadful mistake, reclaim my Wimbledon house and restore my life to how it had been. To put this moment of insanity behind me. But something in Steve’s calmness made me stop and listen to myself: was going back really an option?

With the question came an answer. Sure, I’d signed some legal contracts that would be hard to break, but it wasn’t about that. There simply was no return. My soul had made a decision to leave London some time ago. Hell, it was months ahead of the rest of me, which was just then catching up.

Besides, as my friend Jen Smith from Reach Our Dreams later said, it’s fairly natural to have a wobble when everything is new.

A few days on, feeling enthusiastic about life again and relishing the beauty and silence of the countryside I almost feel glad that I lost the plot for a few hours. Because it made me confront some realities: I have left, I chose to leave, and the future is all for the taking.

Related posts:

1. What do you do when your life doesn’t go according to plan?
2. What you ought to know about working for yourself